Wildlife in Venezuela & Monty's awesome day

Wildlife in Venezuela (Jemima)

There is lots of wildlife here most of it is quite friendly but some is scary: like mountain bees that look like Hornets, the big 24 hour ant that makes you sick for a whole day (before we new what they were mummy went and poked one), the water spider that is bigger than Daddy’s hand, a tarantula nest with thousands of little baby spiders on the nest we couldn’t find the mummy Tarantula though.

These are some of the calm things we found a toad that was so big and fast we thought it was a rabbit and a what I call a plastic frog but of course it was a real bright yellow and black frog, we saw a pig which smelt horrible and stole mummy’s hat (it liked daddy a lot) , we saw a coati which had a very long nose and liked eating bbq chicken, we found lots of wild parrots the hotel had seemed to make friends with them so we all got to hold one here is me holding one of the trained ones it never wanted to come of me so the man had to get cross with it.

A Toucan in our garden

The rabbit-toad

The Tarantula nursery
Check out the cave spider that chased Mummy!

The smelly pig, and a hairy bore.
A parroty visitor
Look at my new friend!
The sandwich toad
The plastic frog
The coati (sp?)

Monty’s awesome day (Hugh)

Let me tell you, any favourable comparisons that you may have heard between Angel Falls and Devon’s Lydford Gorge are inaccurate. From the bottom, the Falls (“The Fairy Falls” – Monty) are nothing short of mind-blowing. The volume of water, the drop, the way the water tries as hard as it can to throw itself down in great swathes, only to break up hopelessly in the face of gravity, wind and speed, and arrive at the bottom as a cloud of spray and fog.

Today was a big day, complementing well yesterday’s aerial acrobatics over the Falls from above, because you can get no real sense of scale in a plane. It was an early morning wake up at 0420 – the French guide from hell tried in vain to wake the kids in Room 4, so in despair then knocked on our door at Room 6 and invoked our assistance. I then tried the same trick for 10 minutes (their door lock was bust from the outside for some reason, which was reassuring), by which time I had woken both Rooms 3 and 5 but still not Room 4. Finally Jemima came to the door a little bleary-eyed and I was eventually able to rouse the others.

After coffee we left in the dark in some kind of lorry, then we had 4 hours boating upstream, then a 3 hour round trip jungle walk up the Fairy Falls and back, then 3 hours back down the river again. With stops for coffee and pig baiting, it was a 12 hour trip and Sarah Goodfellow was sceptical beforehand that this would end well. It did in the end, at 1950hrs, a credit to the various Goodfellow small-fry who appeared to have impressed all.

Of course, when taking your money at the time of booking, all guides questioned are, to a man, optimistic that this adventure is an absolutely perfect trip for 5 year olds, nothing could fit the bill better. Independent tourist witnesses interrogated, that had taken the trip before (and even our guide for El Sapo on the first day), were unanimously of the opposite view, ranging between a verdict of assisted suicide and a silent shake of the head, but I judged them all a load of whingebags and so off we went anyway. Well-meaning scepticism from German tourists is, for me at least, as a red rag to the bull. The Health & Safety arrangements out here are almost non-existent (more on this later), so it’s up to the individual what risks one takes. These boats are mere hollowed-out trees with 48hp outboards on the back; a little tippy but fine if no one moves a muscle during transit; the whole camber and direction of the boat can be controlled by the driver at the back skewing the engine one way or the other. We had a very good one, who seemed not to want to go swimming any more than the next man.

Once on the water however, with the water so high after recent rain, even the guides appeared a little taken aback by the volume of water in the river, but as I say we had a good driver and no one went in during the day. Plenty of stories from the guides of chaps going in the water and not coming up again of course, and all these stories told in the boat rather than during the pre-booking advice stage, but there it is. Enough of that, or Mother will get worried.

The journey up the river was through thick rainforest choking the river on each side. Spectacular, and Jemima Goodfellow’s favourite part. The river begins wide, then as you take smaller and smaller tributaries, it gets much narrower, and the rapids simultaneously become more burly. Great skill from the driver, negotiating at times through gaps that required both the right speed and approach to get through without incident. Plenty of reassurance from our roly-poly guide “don’t worry, this is totally normal” and all-in-all very good fun. Jemima likes the look of the white water and I have great plans to get her in a kayak before long. Sarah and Eliza played charades, and seemed to erase this whole section from their experience. Perhaps for the best.

Once the river ran out, the jungle walk was great – we saw tarantula spider webs bigger than anything I’d imagined possible, like something out of an X-rated version of “Arachnophobia”. Mountain bees on a honeycomb; the now famous “24 hour ant” which, at time ignorant, Sarah baited with a leaf (one bite leads to 24 hours of unimaginable pain, fever and distress); termites galore; parrots; toucans; a white egret (I think); some catfish; a coapi (sp?); along the way a pet pig that smelt something like my feet.

To me, the very existence of jungle is incontrovertible evidence that woodland management is unnecessary in any form. The National Trust should take note. Not only would managing the jungle be a big job, it would also be an entirely redundant exercise. Things grow, then things fall down, and this allows other well-evolved things themselves also to grow, and others to step in and eat them. The same effect would work perfectly well back on Hindhead Commons and would end once and for all any discussions going around Cirencester College about what sort of management is best. None needed.

Back at base, over supper, once we had allowed the kids to go to bed (ha! that’ll learn ‘em) we were discussing Health & Safety, Venezuelan style. We are all home safe and sound, but not all parents would have enjoyed these recent outings. Thursday’s trip to the El Sapo waterfall was awesome; you take a boat, and then a path that goes behind a waterfall (a really burly one too). At one point you stand, a child’s hand in each of yours, as both children skid hopelessly towards certain death were you not to be there in your trusty espadrilles, with the waterfall cascading down trying to pull everyone’s hair out.

Friday’s trip to the Kavac caves was fine, although the massive case spiders and sandwich frogs wouldn’t have ticked everyone’s box. The flight out to the caves was spectacular, but uneventful. The flight home was awesome – the pilot fed off the screams from the back like a drug, and became more and more outlandish in his behaviour. The last 5 minutes was spent only a few feet off the water, buzzing the falls around Canaima then careering into the airport without so much of a mirror-signal-manoeuvre.

And today’s trip was cracking fun, although goodness knows what happens if you fall in, or if the engine fails.

I guess the reality is that in the UK, we can’t really get ourselves into much trouble because there are so many rules preventing us from going anywhere near danger. Cue Venezuela (Slovenia is also good for this) and there are suddenly no rules, just common sense, and the locals pretty much leave you to it – I guess their own kids have acquired a sense of danger over the years. So it was again interesting watching our own kids mucking about only inches from harm without a care in the world. Admittedly, all three have a certain in-built disposition that favours a disregard for their own personal safety (reckless, on occasion), but until this trip I think that even they were all of the view that no one would ever allow them the liberty to get themselves into serious trouble.

We move on today, to some islands called Los Roques. A windsurfing and kitesurfing mecca, I understand. Perhaps a chance to get myself into trouble, methinks.